


Track 04 : Let It Go - Demi Lovato

by RubyFiamma



Series: Listen to the Stereo Tonight [1]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: 8059, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:45:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2308484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyFiamma/pseuds/RubyFiamma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which it takes Gokudera an incredibly long time to come around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Track 04 : Let It Go - Demi Lovato

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer**  
>  I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn! If I did, it'd be a yaoi manga.  
> All rights reserved, Akira Amano-sensei.

 

**[Let It Go](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHue-HaXXzg)  
**

* * *

_"Hey... Hey, are you listening to me?... I said it's okay... It's okay to let go."_

It's not okay to let go. It isn't okay when all you've held close was his hand, his heart. It's not okay to let go when you've tried so hard to overcome your fear of being lost, being  _lonely._

It's especially not okay to let go when there's never been a reason why you should.

Okay... at first Gokudera thinks he should have let go a long time ago. He should have given it up for ghost and chalked it up to something stupid, something definitely worth calling a mistake. After all, shit happens sometimes.

Except when the other man is the ever so persistent and  _annoying_  asshole, it's not exactly easy to go on pretending that nothing happened. To pretend like nothing is there. Because while Gokudera was thinking it was just a mistake,  _he_  was thinking something else.

Gokudera can't say when he began to notice, but perhaps it started when the gaze from those hazel eyes became just a little more heated, when his fingertips would graze and linger just a little too long... when awkward silence became words unspoken and tension filled the air between them, something nearly tangible.

Perhaps it all began when he realized the flutter in the pit of his stomach; something unforgettable and foreign. Maybe it was when his chest clinched tight with dread every time  _he_ left for a mission. It was quite possible, most probable that it happened after the first time they actually kissed.

It all leads back to that one kiss.

Long ago, when Gokudera was young and stupid - hair just a touch longer; his height just a little taller; his body harder and defined - there was a time in his life, that for a very good reason, he was totally lost. Even the Tenth's light offered him no solace from the bleak and abysmal darkness. His father had died and Gokudera hadn't had the chance to talk to him about his mother. It was something he longed for after Bianchi told him that he was born from two loving parents, something he had never thought he'd understand unless his father told him what that actually meant.

It hit him harder than he expected and put him out of commission with the Vongola, for just a short little while. That had made things worse, feeling worthless and abandoned; ashamed and useless. However, another entity shed light on his miserable existence. Someone far more brighter, like a solar flare from a giant sun. He was exuberant and vital, deadly and dangerous, charming and amiable. To Gokudera, his light was  _too_ bright; so bright that he felt like he was being burnt by his rays, an annoying sting and itch that sunk beneath his skin and seared itself into his brain.

He doesn't remember a time where he's ever liked the man across from him, there's been times where he's feared for the other's life or cheered him on in some way or another. But Gokudera does that for the family, to save face for the Tenth. His personal opinion of this man is that he's stupid. He's stupid and nonchalant; too relaxed and too casual. His presence though bright, is arrogant and ignorant and there is nothing Gokudera despises more in this world are people that go through life on the coat tails of another. After all, he's had to work  _hard_ for everything he's ever had and everything that he is. The man across from him is a natural. He's a natural at everything he does, including his abilities as a hitman.

Regardless of his personal opinion, Gokudera sits with his legs tucked under a kotatsu, picking at pieces of uneaten sushi and the man he despises sits across from him. They talk idly about nothing, Gokudera doesn't even know why he's here until he says that he came because he was worried.

It's not odd for him to say something like that, he's not at all intelligent enough to make poetry out of pretty metaphors. He's blunt and awkward sometimes, and he always speaks his mind. But for some reason, this time Gokudera feels a slight skip in his heart beat. A slight hitch in his breathing. It's been a long time since he's felt this kind of warmth, but he tells himself that it's the heat from the kotatsu and nothing more.

The idiot keeps talking, expressing his concern with his lips turned under and his brow creased with worry. It's such an unnatual look for him that Gokudera can't help but stare.

_"Gokudera, I know things have been rough for you and I honestly can't begin to imagine how you feel. Well, I kinda do. Like, when we went to the future and I found out about my old man. There was an empty feeling, you know? Like a huge hole in my heart and a heavy weight on my chest. And I know it's not the same because we fixed things and he's alive now... but If that's how you feel then... let me help you."_

_"Che. Idiot. What nonsense are you spouting now? Help me with what, exactly?"_

_"Let me help you let it go. Let me help you fill that void."_

Gokudera protests, not sure what he means by it. For such a simple sentence, it seems so cryptic. How many ways could he interpret that, how many ways can he actually fill the void that's been sucking his soul, his whole sorry existence into an infinite black hole?

The answer is zero.

_"Tch. Stupid. We're not even friends. I don't need your help, or your pity. So just... fuck off with that sappy bullshit."_

It's what he says but it isn't what he means. He wants so desperately to stop the numbness, he wants to stop feeling like he's in a perpetual limbo and just get back to the way things were before. He wants to let it go.

The man smiles for him, and Gokudera knows it's a smile reserved  _only_ for him because for some reason this man has always been a little too close for comfort, despite Gokudera's attempts to push him away. He's gotten really good at reading the nuances in every motion of the dark haired man opposite to him.

It's then that this defining moment that has had catastrophic disaster of epic proportions happens. Okay, that's a little bit of an exaggeration but Gokudera felt like his life began to slowly unravel, at least his mind did, after this one moment.

The taller man, who's now even more built than Gokudera is; thick biceps and a broad back; skilled in swift and agile motion, leans over the kotatsu and cups his cheek in one, large hand. It's then that Gokudera remembers the warmth of those slightly chapped lips pressing tentatively against his and the subtle slide of fingers trailing across his cheek, curling into his hair. It's then that his heart stops, mind races and he does the unthinkable. He returns the gentle touch of those lips with something far more desperate, far more hungrier. He's just a little too aggressive when he grabs fistfuls of the raven hair (and tries so hard not to think about how soft the locks feel in between his fingers) and drags the idiot down, down and deeper into a perilous kiss with sharp teeth snagging and loose tongues tangling. It's the stupid thing Gokudera has ever done, but it feels the like greatest in that moment. It slowly thaws out his rigid heart, gives way to a new heat that now pools deep in the pit of his stomach. It's the stupidest thing he's ever done and he has to wonder if this will lead to anything more. If this will ever mean anything at all.

In the years following, Gokudera comes to realize he depends on the idiot just a little too much. His light; his warmth have become something of a hindrance but all at the same time something Gokudera desperately craves. The relationship isn't a relationship. It's full of blood streaked skin and sweat soaked hair; a rough tumble of tangled limbs and tangled bed sheets (sometimes there isn't a bed at all) ; full of breathless moans, empty promises, lustful obscenities and foreign curses. It's nothing but rage releasing, testosterone driven, mind numbing kind of fucking that Gokudera needs to get rid of the anxiety, of the stress and the bitterness. The idiot is even a natural when it comes to sex, Gokudera finds it kind of ironic. Finds it ironic that the one person he can't stand, the one person that makes him want to gouge out his own eyeballs and rip his hair out by the root is also the one person that can mercilessly bring him to his knees and have him splayed out and wanting, begging and wanton.

He's the one person that can make Gokudera feel.

And Gokudera notices, that though he's refused to give in and make it into something more than it is, the tall man with the deep scar on his chin and eyes that smile all on their own, isn't happy with just that. He wants more, he wants so much  _more_ , that fucking greedy bastard. Because he's not good at pretending, he's not satisfied with just as is. He wants all of Gokudera, every last bit of his deranged and unstable self. Gokudera can't say he's ever felt so wanted, so welcomed but it scares him so he continues to push. Deep down, there's an itch he can't scratch - a nagging tug at the back of his mind, plucking at his heart strings. Something telling him that even he knows this man means something more to him than whatever it was he had convinced himself of before. He can tell because there's a pain in his chest when the other man isn't with him and just the mere aura of him makes Gokudera feel at ease, tranquil and serene.

But there's only so many times you can push someone away before they stop coming back. It may have taken a bit longer because not only is this man stupid but he is also very patient and it's taken him a little bit longer to get the point. Gokudera doesn't want more, he doesn't want to let it interfere with his life or all the baggage that comes with being in a relationship with another man; a Guardian; a mafioso. He doesn't want to close that fissure deep within his heart for fear that it might tear open once again and this time there would be no one to mend it. There would never be another person like this man and if Gokudera were to lose him, there'd be no coming back from that dark and dismal place. So he simply keeps his distance, keeps the ex-ballplayer at an arm's length and finally the other man has gotten the hint.

He's crushed, Gokudera can see it in his face; his body language; his haphazard and forced smile he puts on for everyone at work. He hopes the man feels that something is better than nothing but as he stares at the other Guardian, watches him mournful and somber, he realizes the man had already been living by that idiom since they shared that fist kiss when they were only seventeen. Now he grieved the death of a non existent relationship and it's where he first realizes that this man might actually love him.

Gokudera tries to reason, tries to get back that feeling but he can't because he's already gone cold. Gokudera's light has travelled to a far off distant planet where he's destined to become someone else's sun. It's left Gokudera feeling frozen, locked out and enveloped in ice and he's come to understand that this hurts more than he wants it to, it hurts more than if he were to leave and not return because he's  _there_ ; right there in front of Gokudera but he's had enough and no longer wants to do this little dance. He's got feelings too, he wears his heart on his sleeve and Gokudera knows this hurts him too. But it must have hurt far more to be the victim of unrequited love. He tries to apologize, he even explains that he's cold,  _so cold_ without the other man's embrace but all the other man does is smile and say,

_"Hey... it's alright. I understand and I'm sorry for pushing you for something you didn't want, You don't have to pretend for my sake. Just let it go, Gokudera. I'll be fine, haha."_

Gokudera hears the faltering in his voice, he sees the anguish laced through the man's otherwise cheerful features. He zones out, watching him; thinking about him; thinking about a future. Thinking about finally letting everything else go that's kept him from being unable to love. Keeping him from truly being happy. He wants this man, wants his love and his stupidity; his sex and his smile; he wants this man's all. Stake his claim on this sun before it's too late.

"Hey... Hey, are you listening to me? I said it's okay. It's okay to let go."

Gokudera looks at the man in front of him, ten years after they've shared their first kiss and finally let's it go. Finally accepts that it's okay to be loved, it's okay to be in this man's hands because he knows this man will never hurt him. He feels safe and at peace; wanted and admired. There's no reason to let him go, none at all.

"Gokudera... are you alright? You keep spacing out."

Moving in just a little bit closer, nothing like the reflexes the man opposite of him exhibits, but quick nonetheless, Gokudera recreates the moments from their first kiss. He cups the smooth, tanned cheek, slides his hand to the back of the man's neck and pulls him down to his height. Gokudera brushes his lips against the other man's and then gives way to the overwhelming emotion, allowing himself to be engulfed by this man's warmth hoping he can read the conviction in this kiss. He must, because he pulls Gokudera close, hugs him tight around his waist and this time it's  _him_ that kisses Gokudera with a desperate hunger, a longing that Gokudera now fully understands.

Gokudera breaks from the kiss first and rests his head against the other man's chest and hears that his heart thuds in tandem with his own. It makes him smile that they've always been so in sync, and he still finds it ironic that the one person he hates is actually the one person that he loves.

"Hey... can I say it?"

Of course. Leave it up to the idiot to ruin the moment.

"Say what, baseball freak?"

"I love you, Hayato."

Gokudera's heart skips one, two, three beats and he allows himself to smile just a little bit longer while he relishes in this man's embrace. He hopes the man is listening, because he'll probably only ever say this once. It's not like Gokudera likes him or anything and doesn't want the idiot to get a big head about it.

After a long stretch of silence, Gokudera finally says, "I love you too, Takeshi."


End file.
